Memeorandum

June 28, 2016

No New News

The NY Times adopts the tried-and-true Hillary line about "old news" in describing the final House report on Benghazi:

House Benghazi Report Finds No New Evidence of Wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton

That's reassuring for libs, who can find reassurance in the notion that they won't need to close their eyes to anything new, and can keep on ignoring the same old same old.

WASHINGTON — Ending one of the longest, costliest and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report on Tuesday, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead.

The 800-page report, however, included some new details about the night of the attacks, and the context in which it occurred, and it delivered a broad rebuke of government agencies like the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department — and the officials who led them — for failing to grasp the acute security risks in the Libyan city, and especially for maintaining outposts in Benghazi that they could not protect.

The committee, led by Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, also harshly criticized an internal State Department investigation that it said had allowed officials like Mrs. Clinton, then the secretary of state, to effectively choose who would investigate their actions. In addition, it reiterated Republicans’ complaints that the Obama administration had sought to thwart the investigation by withholding witnesses and evidence.

The report, however, did not dispute that United States military forces stationed in Europe could not have reached Benghazi in time to rescue the personnel who died — a central finding of previous inquiries.

Still, it issued stinging criticism of the overall delay in response and the lack of preparedness on the part of the government.

“The assets ultimately deployed by the Defense Department in response to the Benghazi attacks were not positioned to arrive before the final lethal attack,” the committee wrote. “The fact that this is true does not mitigate the question of why the world’s most powerful military was not positioned to respond.”

“What was disturbing from the evidence the Committee found was that at the time of the final lethal attack,” the panel added, “no asset ordered deployed by the Secretary had even left the ground.

Timing is everything. As to how people could have known at the outset of the attack just how long it would go on, obviously Team Obama is staffed with seers and savants.

Comments

JiB,

If you check in in the morning, did you know Jack Heiss when you were messing with the FL HS stuff? I knew him when he was still in PUB. The last I heard of him he was quoted in a retrospective issue of Omni mag at the turn of the Century where he was asked about mag levity (what we called it at Ginormous Labs). His answer: "Maglev is the wave of the future...and always will be." Fell out of my chair when I read that.

I simply cannot believe what I see. The SHIT that is so common sense, and understandable to a normal HUMAN, is now DEEEEEP THOUGHT.
ISIS is the JAYVEE. They can wear KOBE BRYANT jersey's, BUT they are not an....WAIT....WAIT.....an EXISTENTIAL THREAT....blah blah blah.
Our problem, is that MORE THAN HALF of US, are STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPIT. Obama says STRAWMAN, and RIDICULOUSLY MORONIC STUPID SHIT, and A MAJORITY of AMERICANS eat it up like PABLUM.
Our NATION and our SCHOOLS have put out the most MORONIC CRAP in HISTORY. Not by accident.
Our future is IGNORANT of our PAST. Our UPCOMING LEADERS, have ZERO ABILITY to LEAD.

And McConnell, Ryan and Weeping Johnny Boner, are afraid to be BRANDED as MEAN.

Well sad news to report from up here in Alaska. No more making fun of our $80 Million Ice-Breaking Ferryboat that never carried a single paying passenger or ferried a single paying car.

Today, after $3 Million worth of repairs on it's 4 dead engines, (since they docked it one Winter and forgot to cover the smoke-stacks thus rotting the engines from snow-melt) it was approved for sale to the Philippine Red Cross for $1.75 Million, which was $5 Million below the asking price, and $78 Million less than the price Taxpayers had to cough up to build the damn thing in the first place: Mat-Su ferry passes sea trial, readies for Philippine journey

I'm sad, because I've had such excellent entertainment this last decade watching the unbelievable waste, fraud, abuse and gross Government incompetence associated with this IceBreaking Ferryboat.

"Goodbye Susitna," sniffle, sniffle, "I'll miss you:("

But with a little bit of luck the story may not quite be over. The broke Matsu Borough still owes the Feds $12 Million for breach of contract and is begging for relief of that debt, plus the Icebreaker Ferryboat has to make it all the way across the Pacific to Manila Bay. ("You may fire when ready Gridley.")

Ferry, we hardly knew Ye!
Too bad we couldn't stick that "Into The Wild" dilapidated School Bus on the Ferry and dump it off on the Philippino's too:(

Heiss not familiar to me but what he says about MagLev is what Schultz said about Brazil.

Did you ever go to Emsland and ride the Transrapid? Did it a few times before it crashed into the maintenance vehicle in 2006. Hard to get to since it is really out of the way on the Dutch border and about an 1 1/2 hour drive from Bremen.

Politico is running non stop articles against Trump and the safety of the convention.
They are not to be trusted to tell the truth.
I believe the people on the ground with real information.
We are not Chicago or Philly.
I would not be going downtown if I did t believe it was safe.
Our message should be the singular one that Hillary is a liar who covered up Benghazi on purpose and who will not protect us from terrorism.
Full stop.

I read that Traub piece and had the same reaction. But it's no different, really, than what NR and most of the GOPe and the MSM have been saying about Trump supporters (and about the Tea Party before this campaign).

When you say to people:

"Shut the f up and die already, you uneducated, uncouth, racist, xenophobic, bigoted, senile Luddite shitbags. The future belongs to us and you're no longer needed or wanted."

Is it any wonder that they stop listening to you and turn to someone who doesn't insult them at every opportunity?

Well, your 7:17 link is depressing, MM. I would imagine we'll see her in Dem ads soon enough, and she'll be trotted out on all the morning network news shows. I can just see the tearful interview with George Stephanolous now.

Chris Stevens has a brother; did the New Yorker interview him too or are they just cherry picking quotes from a family member willing to sell out her brother for the fatass who lied repeatedly about his death being caused by a video?

maryrose @ 7:14...re:safety at Trump events. The Bangor police department urges attendees at the Trump event in Bangor this afternoon "to show respect."
My mother and I spent yesterday in Bangor and shopped 'til we dropped,so we have no plans to go back down to Bangor.
Anyone wishing to attend must text or email.
A fun fact about Maine is our older demographic,many older folks don't have email. The director of the Bangor library said she's had older patrons call and ask to use the library's email to obtain a ticket.
I'll keep an eye on local media this afternoon and give a report.

I would like to point out I post news stories here which seem to me to be of some importance.

I certainly hope that Cleveland is safe. However, there is some concern because although I am sure the locals think they have done a good job, I do not know if 10,000 violent protesters wee exactly something they planned for.

When I posted the story about the BLLM people bussing people in, I was accused of rumor spreading.

The article posted today points out there is concern from some officials, while others say it's no big deal.

To some safety is a faux news story meant to frighten people.
Premise of the story is faulty as there is no way to determine total number of protest people.
I live in Cleveland and know we had over a million persons downtown with only a minor incident.

I was one of those 1.3 million people downtown and it was a wonderful experience. And there's something to be said about Cleveland having a different mindset than, say, Baltimore as I know from first hand experience. But AllCriminalsLoveUs and their highly politicized black robed enablers are doing their best to encourage disruptions unlike the Cavs parade including importing outside agitators. It will be a challenge to keep order amidst that, which I hope the security people are able to do.

"Donald J. Trump has hired a veteran political strategist and former adviser to Senator Ted Cruz as his de facto communications director, a significant move as Mr. Trump shifts toward a more traditional campaign structure.

Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has brought on Jason Miller, of Jamestown Associates, to oversee his campaign’s interactions with the news media, according to a news release from the campaign. Until now those interactions have been done through a lone spokeswoman."

Oh now they tell us. turns out Lerner did commit criminal acts at IRS. Part of her conspiracy with the DOJ (and our local favorite -- her pen pal Kevin Kennedy at GAB). They needed illegal disclosure of tax forms to determine how to make up some bs to criminalize the Tea Party and conservatives in general. New emails show this (yeah, about that crashed drive thing-- did she let Hilary drive it when it crashed).

I won't be surprised if there are plenty of protesters in Bangor this afternoon. My husband's office has a view of the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Office. The TV cameras show up for any protest,which is usually five or six old hippies. A good protest might be 20 people. When the protests are reported,I 'll ask hubby about the "big" protest at the federal building. He laughs and says,yeah I counted six people. The media is going to inflame any situation.

I think the real problem re Cleveland is you have a municipality controlled by Democrats, with a 3-term Black Democrat as mayor. Could be trouble on those facts alone. Then, a Governor who has not enthusiastically embraced the nominee.

So, yes, there is ample opportunity for jaw-dropping stupidity to happen. I wonder about the State of Ohio plan to deal with these anarchists who will flood in. Hopefully they surprise me with an effective plan.

One thing I really hope they don't start doing is sending out those spammy fundraising emails, like Obama did, and Cruz did, several times a day, pretending to be personal missives from the big cheese, but are nothing more high pressure sales tactics sent by some employee hired to send them.

This is how the play with so much of the polling. There is absolutely no way in hell Black people support Clinton 91-1 and any idiot knows this. So they have clearly massaged this data in order for her to maintain a lead. I'd also be willing to bet they have arbitrarily kept up Black turnout numbers and there is no way in hell those numbers match Obama's turnout numbers.

I would not be at all shocked to see just that. I hate it, too, but having worked in non-profit direct mail and email fundraising, I can tell you that it does bring in money effectively.

It does piss off some people, and to anyone who looks at it with any kind of critical eye, they're horrible, but it's a numbers game, and these things are tested endlessly to figure out everything from whose name should be on the email, to what time of day it should be sent, to where in the email the first money ask appears, down to what font is used and what color the background is.

At least, it's done that way if the people doing it are competent and have to justify what they're doing to someone who demands good performance (which I imagine Trump will).

The sad thing about the spammy high pressure begging emails, is how many people really believe that they are getting personal emails from Barack, Michelle, Ted, or Heidi. That makes it fraudulent, imo.

Listening to the State department, teacher union or any other taxpayer funded crybaby whine about how much better they would perform if only they weren't underfunded should be listened to in exactly the same manner as we would some kid who requires a parent to come in and literally kick his lazy arse out of bed each morning whine about his paltry allowance.

I don't give a FLYING F(redacted) what Christopher Stevens LIBTARD sister says.
Rodham lied to me. Obama lied to me. Susan Rice lied to me. If Chris Stevens dumbass sister wants to trust people who allowed her brother to be killed and literally dragged thru the streets of Benghazi, she is a Darwinite. Being a LIBTARD is a DISEASE. When Rodham stood in front of her brothers casket as lied about what caused her brothers death, the bitch lied to EVERY AMERICAN alive. That's NOT OK. Furthermore, the LIES were designed to retain POWER and AVOID CONSEQUENCES. Also NOT OK.
I'm sorry Stevens sister is too DISEASED to honor her brothers memory, and too DISEASED to recognize the people who USED her BROTHER to retain power. Used her brothers DEAD BODY as a prop for their LIES.

These techniques are tried and true, and they absolutely work. The mailings we used to do took advantage of all of them:

Fake surveys (always interesting when we got the mail samples from different groups and the DNC and RNC mailers used exactly the same questions with the order of the answers reversed)

Envelopes designed to mimic an express mail package

Real ink signatures on the letters produced by auto-pens (and back 10 years ago, produced by a roomful of minimum-wage workers signing thousands of letters with somebody else's name)

The sticky-note mailer, which an old employer of mine actually got sued for because it WAS deemed fraudulent, and afterwards they couldn't mail that particular letter into New Jersey or Utah.

And the fake petition mailer that has neighboring addresses printed on the envelope to make you think that all your neighbors have already received it and signed up.

And since none of these things are actually secrets, once somebody comes up with something new that works, it gets copied quickly and you see it from a dozen, or a hundred different organizations and candidates.

I disagree with your analysis of the Quinnipiac poll, but I think that it is quite interesting in another way.

You report that the poll shows Rodham leading Trump 50-33 among Hispanics. According to TK's favorite exit polling, Obama beat Romney 71/27 among Latinos. If in fact Trump is doing better than Romney with this group -- and Rodham doing MUCH worse than Obama -- that could be very significant. (On the flip side, Trump only leading among whites by 47-34 is not good for Trump. Romney won whites 59/39 and still lost the election.)

I would not get too worked up about any poll or all of the polls collectively here in June. A long way to go.

Isn't that amazing? It's like the clowns in the MSM. Obama and Hillary can openly lie to them, treat them with utter contempt, and LITERALLY cause the death of their friends or loved ones, and STILL they will not see the light.

"All of those things certainly played a role. But an organization founded by Kenney’s allies to promote the soda tax was just as critical to his victory, if not moreso. Known as Philadelphians for a Fair Future, it aired TV ads, funded polls, and partnered with an army of volunteers to help persuade lawmakers to support the tax. On one hand, the group’s experience gives other cities a much-needed guide to fighting off super-rich business lobbies. On the other hand, Philadelphians for a Fair Future is a 501c(4) — essentially a dark-money nonprofit — that can raise unlimited amounts of money without needing to disclose anything about some of its donors." ....

"In addition to airing ads, Philadelphians for a Fair Future paid five consultants who worked around the clock lobbying lawmakers, placing op-eds in news outlets, commissioning polls, and acting as spokespeople for the cause. The nonprofit also partnered with more than 80 outside groups that backed Kenney’s tax,..."

And this bit is interesting - "Philadelphians for a Fair Future’s founding chairperson is Andi Perez of the 32BJ Service Employees International Union"

Here in Virginia we've got a 501c4 group, the New Virginia Majority, that is also essentially a union group. They were involved in restoring the rights of felons to vote & they are pushing for driver's licenses for illegal aliens here in Arlington.
Here are some members of the New Virginia Majority's Board:

David Broder, Board Secretary
SEIU Local 512

José Gonzalez, Treasurer
Laborers International Union of America

Doris Crouse-Mays
President, Virginia AFL CIO

Imam Abdul Malik Johari
Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center

Good thing they didn't have "patriot" or "tea party" in their name or the IRS might have harassed them & kept them from forming a 501c4 group.

Trump made a lot of political hay out of the last minute shaming mailer Cruz sent out in Iowa, that compared the recipient's voting "score" to their neighbors, and on the outside of the envelope, screamed VOTER VIOLATION. It scared people and Trump repeatedly called out Cruz for fraud over that.

Another thing interesting about that mailer was how closely its use of "scores" theme and graphics rhymed with the Conservative Scorecard web site. So much so, that the site was thereafter clouded for me, including a cloud over Mark Levin, who was pushing the Scorecard site.

What I recall of that discussion was that I was presenting an analysis of the 2012 and 2008 election data (NOT a "poll") to show that the 5 million fewer votes that Obama got in 2012 as opposed to 2008 almost certainly represented white people who had voted for him in 2008 but stayed home in 2012. I did refer to exit polling data to support this rather intuitive conclusion, but I did not treat ANY poll as gospel and I did not refer at all to ANY pre-election poll.

Nor did I "dodge" any much less all questions relating to demographics. The available data did not tell us everything about the height, weight and shoe size of all the voters. I was totally honest about that.

Your failure to understand at the time or to remember correctly now is on you.

Let me ask you -- how would YOU explain the approximate 5 million drop off in the number of votes that Obama received in 2012 as opposed to 2008? Isn't fewer white voters voting for him the far most logical explanation? And since Romney did not gain near that many votes over McCain, isn't the most logical explanation that those voters stayed home rather than vote for Obama a second time?

I repeat -- I would not get and never have gotten very worked up about any June poll.

Political giving by the aggrevied and set-upon is an old form of bribery in DC. In fact, most of the negative legislation filed against a particular interest has nothing to do with the opposition to that interest but to raise campaign financing from that interest.

So, everytime you see a politician articulating a position against an institution, business or effort then start to check their campaign contribution flows and be amazed as to who is giving.

I have to brag about my dog. He stayed at a new dog daycare yesterday. She was keeping a mix of dogs,including her two labs. When I brought him in,I noticed a Great Dane in the fenced play area. Well,later in the day,all the dogs were playing outside and having lots of fun. My little Scout's new best friend is a Great Dane the size of a small horse.

That's not the first time that technique has been used, either. I recall it being used by Dems in 2014.

I do think these techniques are less effective than they used to be precisely because they get shared on social media, and they can become stories in themselves (as happened when Cruz did it). But they do still work, or they wouldn't be used - again, assuming you're working with competent and reasonably honest fundraising people.

I'm not sure that necessarily applies to everyone that the RNC (or DNC for that matter) or individual candidates hire, though.

Iggy
No one is responsible for people's destructive behavior or habits but the persons themselves.
Christians are not going to take the rap for all these people who can't get their act together.
Indianapolis was not chosen for the Republican convention.
I have full confidence in the security precautions.
I understand other Ohioans don't trust the mayor or governor of our state to protect its citizens. I disagree.
Since others don't live here I disregard what I believe are their erroneous
conclusions.

But ... I still want to retain my fantasy, if that's what it is, that the reason he won so big was that he used fresh and new tactics aided by fresh and new faces to get his message out. That's largely what people responded to, imo.

RattleGator
What has Trump done lately to speak with Kasich wrt his role at the convention?
The last thing I recall was a mocking statement about how he eats a sandwich.
Please no comments about how it is the duty of Kasich to approach him first.
Also Trump was in Ohio yesterday.
That is good news.
He needs to come up with a plan to win Ohio and Kasich who bassoon governor twice and Ohio in the primary is just the one to help him if he asks for assistance.

They're highly political in a different way.
It's not productive to deny Trump has committed unforced errors.
If his message is only slightly diluted while eliminating those unforced errors which make it easier for the Dems [and the GOPe] to make their slanders stick, seems to me it will be to his benefit.

TK
Yes it does but we retain high standards and try to give people the benefit of the doubt before we question their motives and integrity.
We also call a spade a spade. What you see is what you get. There is no artiface

Maryrose, we'll never agree on your Governor. It is shameful what he has done and I don't recall it ever being done before.

That's how shameful it is to me. YMMV.

Provide me an example of it occurring in the past and I'll revisit my analysis. Otherwise, he'll get no benefit of the doubt from me. Ohio isn't the only place in America that calls a spade a spade. Most of us feel that way, and we've collectively spoken loud and clear in the primaries. The man didn't get my vote but we've collectively spoken. Any attitude otherwise mimics the entitled nonsense seen in the European Union.

Theo, those black polling numbers are directly related to the white polling numbers, IMHO. They've arbitrarily increased black numbers and pulled down white numbers when it should have been exactly the opposite. And they've likely done it by targeting certain areas (urban) for the numbers and ignoring others (suburban, rural).

Kasich has not endorsed Trump. He's done a couple of those interviews where he does the public handwringing over some of Trump's statements.

Indianapolis wasn't chosen by the RNC because (if I remember correctly) we didn't bid for it.
We had upcoming events that conflicted and the hotel rooms weren't available.

It's also possible we didn't bid because the RNC usually chooses cities in states that will either get them electoral votes or lots of happy media people. The last time a city with a GOP mayor and governor were chosen was San Diego, which was some time ago.

Cleveland has never hosted a Super Bowl or the Pan American games, if we are playing THAT game.